Colors
by The Sarcastic Typo
Summary: A series of unrelated ficlets. All gen.
1. Red

**Title: **Blood  
**Summary: **The first time Gil remembers seeing blood.  
**Character:** Grissom  
**Rating: **PG  
**A/N: **Thanks for the beta, Kelly!

Grissom still remembered the first time he'd seen blood - of course, it had been when he was small. It was something hard to forget.

His mother's blood had been a shocking red, gushing from her nose, where his father had hit her.

That had been the first and last time his father had gotten violent because his mother hadn't given him a chance to do it again. She wasn't stupid, and she knew she had to leave and to take her child with her. There was no excuse for any child to ever have to witness anything like that.

He wasn't a child anymore, though, and he saw things like that nightly, now. He'd found that none of the victims he'd ever seen had blood quite as red as his mother's.

-End


	2. Orange

**Title: **Greg  
**Summary: **Greg was enthusiastic.  
**Character:** Greg Sanders  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N:** Thanks for the beta, Kelly!

Greg was enthusiastic. He liked loud music, bright shirts of orange, green, blue, and purple, and crazy hair. He was happy, quirky, fun, and, he knew, cute. Quite cute, in fact. He wouldn't turn down the opportunity to be a flirt, either.

He liked video games and surfing, was a geek who liked the great outdoors. He loved that he didn't exactly fit into one stereotype. It kept people guessing, which he thought was fun.

His enthusiasm was contagious, and he was ambitious. He was rather excited when he finally passed his proficiency test. Sure, the lab was safer and it paid more, but it wasn't exciting, which he liked and craved.

Greg was a bright kind of person, in every sense of the word, and that's how he wanted to stay. Not even the ugliness of crime could dim his spirit.

**-**End


	3. Yellow

**Title: **Taste  
**Summary: **Some people have horrible taste.  
**Character:** David Hodges  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N: **Thanks for the beta go to Kelly, as per usual. She rocks.

David Hodges loved his grandmother, really. She was kind, smart, sharp, funny, and generally a very fun woman to hang around. Unfortunately, she had horrible taste.

Hodges stared at the offending articles of clothing lying on his bed. They were a shirt and a tie she'd given to him for his birthday. Oh, sure, they _sounded_ innocent enough, but wow, were they ugly. He was about ninety percent sure the shirt could be used as a deadly weapon.

The shirt was a bright yellow, with a golden and pale yellow plaid pattern. Next to it laid a bright yellow tie with _stripes_ that was supposed to "match." Hodges cringed. This combination of shirt-and-tie would make a blind man run away in terror.

He smirked. Maybe he'd give them to Greg.

-End


	4. Green

**Title:** Nature  
**Summary: **Nick loves nature.  
**Character:** Nick Stokes  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N:** Thanks for the beta, Kelly!

Nick Stokes loves nature. He loves hiking, walking, biking, running - just getting outside and doing something. He loves walking through the green, healthy grass, seeing the flowers; he likes to stop and smell the roses.

He likes the simplicity of it - it reminds him of being a kid, when everything was black and white, and you could get away with lying in the grass all day and watching the clouds go by.

Nature brings him back to a time when his biggest worry was English homework, not if he would be stalked, or end up buried alive. When he sees and feels the green grass, the healthy plants, and the tall trees, it brings back a little piece of his innocence.

-End


	5. Blue

**Title:** Favorite  
**Summary:** There are reasons we have favorite colors.  
**Character: **Catherine Willows  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N:** Thanks for the beta, Kelly!

Blue is Catherine's favorite color; it's the color of the clear sky, the color of crisp water. It represents peace, tranquility - a calmness that she wishes she had but knows she'll probably never achieve.

She associates blue with the night sky, as well, even if then it is more black; she just calls it navy. White diamonds sparkling on a navy blue satin pillow - that was how she used to describe the sky. It was glamorous, fun, but now she's lost that innocence. Now, when she's under that sky, she's usually looking at horrors no one should ever have to see or deal with.

The color also reminds her of her daughter, and for that, it could be nothing _but_ her favorite. She remembers when Lindsey, only three at the time, had presented her with a drawing, colored only in one color - light blue. She had accepted it with praise, but asked about the lack of other colors; Lindsey had simply smiled and said, "It's you, Mommy."

It doesn't escape her that blue is also often connected with loneliness.

-End


	6. Purple

**Title: **Bruises  
**Summary: **Bruises vs. scars.  
**Character:** Sara Sidle  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N: **Thanks for the beta go to Kelly, as per usual. She rocks.

Bruises weren't black and blue, Sara knew. They were a weird purple-ish color.

She'd seen enough of them to know.

Bruises weren't like scars - they didn't last. Eventually, they'd fade, and no one would be the wiser. No one would ever even know that a bruise had once been somewhere, or inquire as to what happened. Unless the bruise was fresh, there was no way to detect it. The injury would be forgotten.

Except by the person who'd had the bruise. The force with which they were grabbed, smacked, pushed, or where they had fallen, where they _said_ they'd fallen, that would remain with a person. It would stay in their minds, either constantly and consciously or in the back of their mind and inherently. Maybe bruises weren't permanent physically, but they were mentally.

And for that, Sara thought, they were just as bad as scars.

-End


	7. White

T**itle: **Angel  
**Summary: **Why couldn't she be an angel?  
**Character:** Jim Brass  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N: **Thanks for the beta go to Kelly, as per usual. She rocks.

When his daughter had first been born, Jim had compared her to an angel. All she needed were the halo, wings, and aura of bright white light, and she'd be perfect.

Ellie had been a joy in those early years. She'd been happy, always smiling, giggling, and always wanting her dad. Jim had often called her "his little angel." Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

The years brought age, wisdom, and cynicism, though. He knew by the time she was fourteen that his daughter was no angel. The halo had bent, the wings were cut off. The aura of white light had dimmed.

Jim wondered if he'd ever stop wishing for her to still be that angel.

-End


	8. Brown

**Title: **Cool  
**Summary: **Warrick is cool.  
**Character:** Warrick Brown  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N: **Thanks for the beta go to Kelly, as per usual. She rocks.

Warrick Brown was cool. Collected. He didn't lose it for anything. His one vice - the one thing that would zap away his control even just a little - had been gambling, which was now under _his_ control.

He saw horrible thing every day, but he tried to live his life knowing he was helping. He tried his best to not let it get to him, to stay cool. Even when the horrors he experienced _did_ get to him a little, he was still Mr. Cool. He had to be. He had to keep people grounded, right?

He wondered just how many people saw through his facade. It was hard work pretending. One day, he vowed to drop his act, if only for a moment, to get some help for _himself_.

Only Warrick never knew when that day would come.

-End


	9. Black

**Title: **Villain  
**Summary: **Get a new bad guy.  
**Character:** Conrad Ecklie  
**Rating: **G  
**A/N: **Thanks for the beta go to Kelly, as per usual. She rocks.

Ecklie sometimes felt like he was constantly wearing a black cowboy's hat.

So often, he played the villain: trying to get Nick fired, doing everything he could to ruin Grissom, demoting Sophia, breaking up the graveyard shift. He did things like that every day.

He was an asshole, right? The stereotypical "bad guy." There couldn't be anything _decent_ about him - who else would everyone hate? And he didn't really care the majority of the time. He played politics, clashed with Grissom, none of it mattered. It was like a huge game.

Then, however, Nick had been kidnapped and buried alive. One of _his_ guys, no matter how much Nick probably disliked him. None of the petty grievances between himself and Grissom or whomever on the graveyard shift had mattered. Nothing had, except for getting Nick back alive.

Ecklie hadn't played the bad guy, for once. And now, that Nick was back and safe and things were returning slowly to normal, Ecklie found that he didn't _want_ the black cowboy's hat any longer.

He didn't want to be the villain.

-End


	10. Colorless

**Title:** Cruel  
**Summary: **Color has never been so cruel.  
**Character: **Sara Sidle (She gets two, I guess.)  
**Rating: **PG  
**A/N:** Thanks to Kelly for the beta.

She rarely dreams in color.

Most of the time, Sara's dreams are colorless. Black and white images flit through her subconscious mind, turning her dreams into old picture shows. Those dreams, though slightly eerie, are also peaceful. They're comforting because they're normal, constant.

But then there are the nights where her dreams are in vivid technicolor. She sees every little detail in the bright color and nothing is left to the imagination. The blood is crimson, the bruises are plum, and the knife blade is a shiny, deadly silver.

These dreams are terrifying and always leave her gasping for breath. She wakes up from the cruelly colorful world and wants to cry but doesn't dare let herself.

When she returns to sleep, her dreams are mercifully color-free.

-End


End file.
